A New Glimpse Inside the Grey Gardens Home

Grey Gardens, the seven-bedroom estate at 3 West End Road in East Hampton that once belonged to Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith Beale, is on the market for the first time since 1979. Big Edie and Little Edie, as the formerly well-to-do mother-daughter duo were known, lived in the palatial estate in total isolation and squalor, surrounded by raccoons and stray cats. A 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, shot by Albert and David Maysles, followed the daily life of this eccentric pair while also capturing the deterioration of their once grand home. The success of this documentary led to other takes on the story including the highly acclaimed HBO film of the same name, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, and a subsequent Broadway musical. Americans were, and continue to be, fascinated by the codependent mother-daughter dynamic, the fact that these were Jackie Kennedy’s relatives living in total destitution—Kennedy herself summered just down the street—and their epic fall from grace. It all amounted to what could arguably be an early signal of our later national obsession with reality TV, while the Beales’ style—who can forget those head wraps and the fur?—has influenced more than a few designers’ collections.

After Big Edie died in 1977, Little Edie sold the house to former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and his wife, journalist Sally Quinn. The Washington, D.C., power couple restored the 1897 estate to its former glory. Located only a stone’s throw from Georgica Beach, the mansion sits on a 2-acre lot, and the property boasts a tennis court, gardens, and a heated pool. Bradlee and Quinn went to great pains to get the restoration project right—they stripped the three-story shingle house down to its original paint colors and reinstated old Dutch doors, custom built-ins, wainscoting, and marble sinks. After Bradlee died in 2014, Quinn told the Wall Street Journal: “It just wasn’t the same without him.” She’s now listed it for $19.995 million and with that given us all a chance to get a glimpse inside the restored Grey Gardens.